Lahore: The Punjab government had approved a specific crop insurance policy in 2017 to cover crop losses due to natural calamities, under which 22 lakh 87 thousand 559 farmers have been registered in the last 6 years and till now farmers have received Rs 1390 million. has been given as compensation, but due to some technical reasons, there are thousands of farmers who have not received any compensation for the loss of crops.
Salamat Ali, a resident of Karimabad, a suburb of Rahim Yar Khan, said that last year, my 8 acres of crops were destroyed due to heavy rains, wind and hail. The crops were severely damaged, it was a difficult moment for me, I was hoping that they would get some compensation from the agriculture department, but a year has passed and other farmers, including them, have not received a penny.
Salamat Ali said that many farmers’ crops were damaged due to rains and hailstorms, but no one has received any compensation. Although these people had registered their crops.
Director General Crop Reporting Service Punjab Dr. Abdul Qayyum told The Express Tribune, “It is a group insurance. If the crop production in a district centre, tehsil or union council is 10-20% less than the average production of the last ten years, all the insured farmers are paid equally.
He said that if wheat and rice crops are affected by more than 10 percent and cotton crops by more than 20 percent, the farmers are compensated. For this, farmers must register themselves with the regional office of the Agriculture Department before planting each crop. Under this scheme, the government pays 100% of the insurance premium for farmers with an area of less than five acres and 50% of the premium for an area between five and 25 acres.
According to the officials of Crop Reporting Service Punjab, 22 lakh 87 thousand 559 farmers were registered in the last 6 years and so far 1390 million rupees have been paid to the farmers while last year 746 million rupees were paid to the flood affected farmers. Is. Payment of compensation to registered farmers is done through digital transfer which requires registered phone number and biometric. A verification code is sent to the registered farmer’s phone number, with the help of this code the farmer can go to any digital transfer agent and receive the money.
Officials also said that if a farmer fails to get biometric verification or there is a problem with the mobile number, the money stays in the bank and is returned to the government after a certain period.
The Express Tribune obtained the data of the registered farmers of Rahim Yar Khan and DG Khan and tried to get contact and information from about 100 farmers, but 48 percent of the phone numbers in the list were in use by someone else or those phone numbers. were closed.
43 percent of the farmers said that their crops were destroyed by the hail but they did not receive any compensation while 9 percent confirmed that they were compensated by the government.
According to an investigation by The Express Tribune, the reason some farmers are not getting compensation for crop loss is that the phone numbers in the crop reporting records are incorrect. Some farmers of the same area have written the number of their relatives in the record, that’s why the phone numbers of many farmers are written the same, while some phone numbers are of people who live in other districts of the country and they don’t know. How did Oryx enter his number in this list?
Amir Hayat Bhandara, a progressive farmer, says that the crop insurance program is excellent but still has many flaws. He gave an example that last year the cotton crop was damaged in Sahiwal and Chichawatani, but the government did not give any compensation to the small farmers who have less than five acres of land, although the government should have given all those farmers who have Those who have suffered damage should get compensation from the companies, but the government’s policy is to not get compensation until the entire tehsil is declared a disaster.
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